


drip drip dripped in gold

by soliloquies



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M, Rated T for language, daisuga - Freeform, kurotsukki - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-02 00:54:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17254583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soliloquies/pseuds/soliloquies
Summary: In all the movies Kei’s mother watches, short, round-faced girls clutch their chests and stand on their tiptoes and lean forward just so, and the magic begins. The roses, and the whirlwind romance, and the confessions, and the love letters, and all of it comes together to make his mother’s eyes tear up and her to turn to him and say, “Oh, Kei, isn’t that wonderful?”The end of training camp, there, then—It was a different kind of magic.





	drip drip dripped in gold

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sonnets_and_snowdrops](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonnets_and_snowdrops/gifts).



Tsukishima Kei knows he has a flair for the dramatic, but this is a little too much. 

He never would’ve expected it to be  _ Sawamura _ of all people, his own sturdy, strong-willed senpai, and yet— here they are, on New Year’s Eve in a nightclub at 11 PM, and the birthday party’s in full swing. 

Kei sighs and calls the bartender over. 

And it’s not even the fact that the lights are flashing way too much, or the music just loud enough to make his head hurt, or he still has class tomorrow. 

It’s the fact that he doesn’t even know why he’s here. 

Yamaguchi had pleaded, and Yachi had pleaded, and Hinata and Kageyama probably didn’t care because they were too busy fucking on their dining table or whatever people of their caliber do at 3 PM, and he could’ve ignored all of it but he didn’t. 

He didn’t. 

And now he’s here. 

Why is he here again?

He steals a glance back to the floor, where Yamaguchi is going all out and Hinata’s going with him. They don’t look that bad, actually, they look pretty good, and maybe it’s the way Hinata pushes his hair out of his face or Yamaguchi’s arm snaked around his shoulders, but Kei doesn’t want to watch anymore. 

Kageyama is hanging around the bar too, and he slides in next to Kei and orders himself a drink. 

Kei frowns. “Aren’t you driving?” 

“No,” Kageyama responds. “I gave up.  Shouyou’s…” He looks back to the dance floor with a flush. 

Kei doesn’t even wait for him to finish. “I get it. You need a drink.”

Kageyama nods and they lapse into easy silence; the party rages around them. It was hard with Kageyama before, but once they all started university and ended up in Tokyo (despite Kei’s desperate wishes), they kind of gravitated into one group, and now Yamaguchi and Yachi chatter all the way to the Starbucks where Hinata works, Kei trailing behind them, and when they get there, Kageyama’s already pretending to study at a table in the back. 

It hits him, suddenly, that they all made it. 

Unconsciously, he looks back to Yamaguchi— 

He’s not really dancing anymore, more like swaying, laughing with Hinata. Kei knows Yachi must be in the corner somewhere catching up with Kiyoko. Kageyama’s fumbling his order with the bartender next to him. All around them are barely-familiar faces. He hasn’t seen the birthday boy all night, but Nishinoya had slapped him on the back when he’d come in, and Asahi had given him a quick smile and a nod, a greeting that left Kei slightly rattled. Surely these people didn’t care about him anymore. They’d barely known him. Right?

Third year took all of them by surprise. Kei hadn’t even known that Yachi was applying to the same school he and Yamaguchi were, and it’s only by a miracle that the freak duo got in at all. Somehow, somehow, they survived, through all the spats and real fights, and Hinata at Kei and Yamaguchi’s dorm at 3 AM, and Kageyama sheepishly knocking at Yachi’s apartment. Things happened, and the whole thing was really just a pain in the ass for Kei, but truthfully, he realizes that without all of it, they wouldn’t be here tonight. And tonight’s kind of a pain in the ass too, but well, Kei is starting to realize that that’s how things just go.

—and they’re here, and Kei is starting to learn that that’s enough.

Kei doesn’t even know how much time passes, but suddenly he’s surrounded. Hinata and Yamaguchi had come back from the dance floor and Yachi arrived to catch up and get herself a water. 

“Guess what?” Hinata pants. 

Kageyama smiles a slow smile; Kei feels voyeuristic. 

Hinata’s only focus is on Kageyama, and yet he barrels on without notice, “Kenma’s here! I didn’t even know he knew Daichi-san— oh wait, he must’ve come with Kuroo, of course! We started talking about Smash Ultimate, you know, the game  _ you _ didn’t let me buy…”

Kei’s head spins. 

Everyone is staring at him. Then at Hinata.

Hinata’s voice goes from accusatory to confused. “What is it?”

Yamaguchi sighs. “You weren’t—

“Kuroo’s here?”

Kei winces. The question had come out far more choked than he wanted it to be, but he can’t deny the lump in his throat, or his heart’s acceleration into double-time. 

Yachi leans forward. “He doesn’t know you’re here, though. Don’t worry, Kei-kun.” 

“Yeah,” he replies, but it’s distant, and his mind is already whirring. 

“Okay, well, I’m gonna go back,” Hinata says slowly. “I’m really sorry, Tsukishima, I didn’t mean to—”  

“It’s fine,” Kei says absentmindedly. 

As soon as they’d all showed up, they disperse and it’s back to him and Kageyama again. 

It’s probably a half an hour later when Kageyama gets up, says something to him, and leaves. 

Kei hardly notices. 

Kuroo’s here… 

Kuroo is in this very room, within walking distance. Kei hadn’t even heard about him since university started, not when Yamaguchi had informed Hinata of what happened in first year. He doesn’t even know where Kuroo goes to school. He doesn’t know what Kuroo majors in. He doesn’t know how many people Kuroo had kissed after he had kissed Kei. He doesn’t even know how Kuroo looks like anymore. The thought is dizzying. 

Kageyama suddenly appears. “Hey,” he says, breath shallow. “I’ve been walking around this place forever, but I can’t find Hinata anywhere. Help me look.”

Kei mindlessly gets up and follows him. 

“You go that way, I’ll go left!” Kageyama yells over the noise, and Kei nods. 

What if Kuroo is unrecognizable?

He nudges his way through the crowd, and it’s hot and sweaty, and God—  does Sawamura really know this many people? The floor bursts with bodies and grinding and the smell of alcohol and happiness. 

He thinks he spots a chock of orange hair over the multitude when it happens. 

Golden eyes fall on his. 

“I—” Kuroo stops short, and so does Kei’s heart. What was he even thinking? He could recognize those eyes anywhere.

The lights flash and there’s people between them, but it’s the first glance of Kuroo he’s had in a long time. Despite himself, Kei soaks up everything he can. Something glints at his ears, a piercing for sure, and there’s black ink on his neck disappearing down his shirt, and oh god, his  _ skin _ . Kuroo looks like a stranger. 

Kuroo looks like home. 

“Kei,” Kuroo says, practically sighs, and Kei can’t even hear it over the din of the music and the laughter and everything else that is suffocating him in this moment, but he  _ knows  _ the shape of Kuroo’s lips over his name, and it shouldn’t be familiar, but it is, and—  who does he think he  _ is,  _ calling Kei by his first name?

It’s been years. 

It feels like days.

A stranger shoves in front of him, and Kuroo’s saying, “Wait!” but Kei doesn’t hear, can’t hear anything but the thunder of blood in his veins pulling him closer when he wants to leave—  and he resists. 

And again, he slips away.

 

Kei’s last training camp before Interhigh his first year is something that still comes forth in his mind to this day. 

Sometimes he’s sitting with the rest of them at Hinata’s Starbucks, and when the place starts to feel so familiar that he feels like outsider, he steps back, takes his coffee, and leaves. Yamaguchi always notices, he knows, but never says anything. 

It is easier to feel alone in a sea of strangers, so he steps outside and loses himself in the past. 

It’s indulgent, he knows. But he’s alone. There’s nobody there to stop him.

There was all sorts of stuff happening back then. He was resentful, so angry, about Hinata, about Akiteru, about volleyball, about Kuroo. 

Now, the only thing he resents is himself.

And yet, through all the years, all the people he’s known, all the places he’s been, the third gym will always be his favorite. 

He learned a lot there. Not just in that training camp, not just from his confrontation with Yamaguchi, but in the third gym itself. 

He jumped, and he sweated, and he’d endured bouts of  _ oya? oya oya? _ and he’d watched. 

Kei thanked all the gods he wasn’t Christian, because he had never sinned more in that place.

He’d watched Kuroo’s hair rustle and his thighs flex as he jumped, his shirt slipping up,  _ up—  _

He’d noticed other things too. He’d noticed Kuroo’s eyes follow his in the dining room, noticed Kuroo follow the line of his throat when he drank water, and maybe there were dozens of other moments he hadn’t noticed, but that’s the thought that Kei indulges in the most. 

Sometimes he wishes he could go back to that training camp, maybe rewind everything and start anew again from there. 

In another way, Kei knows he wouldn’t do it right no matter how many chances he’d got, and in that moment, he usually sighs, and keeps walking. 

He might as well do the best he can in this moment.

 

He needs to get away from the party. He needs to— he needs to—  he needs to leave. 

Kei pushes his way through the crowd and stumbles out the club’s door. It’s not snowing, hasn’t been that cold this year, but the air still nips at his uncovered limbs. 

He plops down on the curb, looks up. 

It’s Tokyo. The sky is black. 

Everything comes crashing down. He puts his head between his knees, breathes in and out. Kuroo’s here. Nothing’s changed. Kuroo has his own life. Kei has his own life. There’s nothing left. 

There was nothing in the first place.

Kei wants to stay out here, alone, until the sun explodes and destroys Earth. He doesn’t want to see anybody right now—  

“Tsukishima-san?”

Kei lifts his head up to find ash brown hair and a concerned smile. “Sugawara-san,” he responds tiredly. “Hello.”

Suga laughs a bit. “Just Suga is fine, you know that. You’ve known that for a long time. And yet… you call me Sugawara-san anyway. Why is that?”

Kei finds the truth slipping out before he can stop it. “We’re not friends.” 

The reply is so blunt it grates on his own ears, but all Suga does is laugh a little more. 

“Really?” he asks. “Well, I think we’re friends, Tsukishima-san. So you can call me whatever you’d like.”

Kei searches for malice in the man’s eyes, but there’s nothing but an easy smile on his face. 

“So… are you enjoying the party?” Suga asks. Kei gives him an incredulous look. “Okay, okay,” Suga laughs. “Yeah, that’s to be expected. Not really your thing, huh?”

“I’m surprised it’s Sawamura-san’s thing.”

“It wasn’t. It was my idea,” Suga admits. “I… actually haven’t seen him in half an hour. I think Bokuto and Kuroo have him trapped somewhere…”

Kei grimaces and puts his head down again. From above, Suga’s voice is earnest. “I’m sorry, Tsukishima-san. I didn’t realize… I’m sorry.”

Kei sighs. “It’s not your fault. I… should be okay by now. It’s been a long time.” 

What did he have to explain for his behavior? He hadn’t seen Kuroo in five years. “I don’t know why I’m being like this,” he professes, the truth coming out again. Maybe it’s Suga’s natural smile, or maybe it’s that Kei is far from the vicious teenager he once was. And maybe it’s hard keeping his guard close, and his secrets closer. 

Maybe he’s more tired than he’d thought, he realizes. Tired of pretending he doesn’t care when he really cares too much.

“A long time…” Suga muses. “Despite everyone’s opinions, Daichi and I really weren’t together in high school. I don’t think he knew he was gay back then.” Another laugh. “But I was so gone for him. From first year. And then… after Karasuno…”

“It’s different all of a sudden when you don’t expect it,” Suga says quietly. “And times are hard, but we all make it out in the end, don’t we?” 

And Kei feels odd, because it’s been a long time since he’s flinched from the word gay, a long time from the cold nights in bed and ever-present thought that maybe he was  _ wrong _ , but he was never one to be secure in himself, and the thought leaves envy biting at his heart like frost at his fingertips. 

“Suga! You in here?” someone calls. “There’s been, uh, a mishap!”

“Yeah, I’m coming!” Suga answers, then flashes Kei a grin. “Gotta go. Hey, if there’s anything you need…” 

“I’m fine.” 

Suga smiles, walks away. He’s just about through the door when—  

Kei hesitates, and then he calls out, “Suga-san.” 

Suga turns around. He looks so casual in that moment: hands in pockets, a half-smile on his face, hair slightly ruffled and the dark gray sweater he’s wearing all tie together and make him exactly who he is. Someone Kei will never be. 

Is that okay?

He thinks that might be okay. 

“Yeah?”

“Kei. You can call me Kei,” he says, and it’s so quiet that maybe Suga doesn’t hear him but— 

“All right, Kei.”

It feels like the first thing Kei has done right in years.

 

It’s only a few minutes later that the door swings open again, and the party inside spills out into the chilly air before it shuts softly, and the night is still again. 

Kei doesn’t even bother to glance backward to see who it is.

Kuroo sits down on the curb next to him. He looks surprised to see Kei sitting there. “You were gone a while. I thought you left.”

Kei sighs, leans back. “Yachi’s my ride back.”

“Yachi…?” Kuroo muses. “Oh, the blondie. Mm, she’s cute.”

“Always had a thing for blondes, huh?” Kei asks. 

Kuroo gives him an quietly appraising look. 

“You’ve changed,” he says, 

“You haven’t,” Kei says back.

The statement hangs in the air like a guillotine over their heads. When Kuroo makes no move to respond, Kei sighs again. 

“Can I ask you a question?” Kei asks, as if it’s not that they haven’t seen each other in five years. The words have been burning holes through his tongue since he saw him, but suddenly, the heat melts the lump in his throat and he says quietly, “Why did you come out here? What do you want from me?”

And it’s not like Kuroo makes a habit of putting on a mask with Kei, but for a moment his face is truly bare.

Kei’s heart pounds in his ears. Maybe he never should’ve asked. Maybe he doesn’t want to know the answer. Five years, he reminds himself.  _ Five years and you gave up the title, _ his mind snarls.  _ Don’t believe for a second that he ever owed you anything. _

Kuroo looks him right in the eye. This is one of the things Kei has always admired about him. His eyes are dark, and they catch and hold him even when he’s trying to look away. Kuroo is brave like that, always willing to face what lies ahead, and Kei has always fallen just short. 

“What do you think I want?” he answers. 

God, and he—  he can’t take it anymore. Kei nearly tears his hair out. 

“Kuroo, I—  what do I think you want? Kuroo, how the hell should I have any idea of what you want? I don’t know why you’re still here. I don’t even know what I want. And you just…” 

Kei glances at Kuroo, eyes tired, heart heavy. And he gives up. 

Because Kuroo is sitting there, next to him, and it’s nearly midnight and Kei has class tomorrow, and Kuroo is wearing his black skinny jeans, the ones that always made him look so good, and Kuroo has a thing for blondes and he kissed Kuroo when he was fifteen and Kuroo is messy and brave and kind,  _ God _ , so kind, so beautiful it  _ hurts _ , and there were nights and there were days and months and years in between and Kei—  Kei left him. 

Kei left him. 

Kuroo watches as Kei takes off his glasses, presses his palms to his eyes like he wishes all of this were just a bad dream.

Around them, the night chirps on. 

 

People know Yamaguchi for his soft edges and softer smiles, but Kei—  Kei knows what he’s actually like. Yamaguchi is not one to run from the truth. Yamaguchi takes the truth with his own two hands, and when Kei runs, Yamaguchi stays. And he smothers Kei with it.

Yamaguchi, Kei thinks, is his own world wonder.

They’ve only really had one huge fight before. It was first year, obviously, because everything of any importance happened in first year.  _ Pathetic, _ was what Yamaguchi had called him back then, when he was lost and confused. 

_ What else do we need besides pride?!  _ he had screamed, and Kei was taken aback. Never would he have thought that Yamaguchi would be more in control than he was, and maybe that’s where it all went wrong. So he resolved to start anew, do better. As best he could.

Admittedly, he’s still lost and confused, but he knows a little more now. For all everyone thinks of him, Kei has always been a slow learner, and at some point, things catch up. 

Technically, it didn’t happen during first year. Technically it happened during the break between first and second year. 

It started off simple. There was a lion documentary playing on Kei’s TV, his mother had gone to the grocery store. Yamaguchi was sprawled along the couch, Nintendo held lazily between his hands. Kei was absentmindedly watching the movie. 

The house was quiet. 

“How’s Kuroo doing?”

Oh, it had started off  _ so  _ simple. 

“Tsukki?”

“Hmm, what?”

“I said, how’s Kuroo?”

Kei had tried not to stiffen. He still remembers that. He had tried not to show anything was wrong. 

Oh, well. Yamaguchi always found out the truth.

“How should I know?” he responded. 

“Well when did you last talk to him? How was he doing then?”

“Why are you interested in this?” Kei snapped. 

Yamaguchi sat up. “Why are you being so snappy? All I did was ask you a question.” 

“Well I don’t know the answer.”

Yamaguchi frowned. “Kei… when did you last talk to Kuroo?”

“I don’t know. Like… a month ago.”

Yamaguchi gaped. “A— A month? Kei, what? Did you break up?”

Kei gave him a look. “What do you mean ‘break up’? We were never together in the first place.” 

Yamaguchi’s eyes turned cold. “Are you serious right now?”

“What?” Kei asked. “Did I do something wrong?”

“You’re such a fucking  _ coward _ , you know that?”

The Nintendo had long since been cast aside. Yamaguchi was practically growling now. “Like, okay, I know that you’re scared of being happy or whatever because you don’t want that to be taken away from you—  I don’t get it, but I know that. But I just— how could you  _ do  _ that?”

“Did I do something wrong?” Kei repeated.

“Of course you did something wrong!” Yamaguchi yelled. “When it comes to things that matter, you hardly do anything right! Look, I can’t. I can’t do it. I can’t help you fix things that you do to yourself. I bet you just left him hanging, didn’t you?”

Kei stayed silent. Yamaguchi was enraged. Yamaguchi  _ always  _ found out the truth. 

“I bet you were just scared of the commitment. I can’t believe you sometimes. How could you mess with his feelings like that? You’re just hurting yourself. I can’t help you fix that.”

Yamaguchi got up to leave. 

“Just so you know, he loved you. Even I could tell. You gave that up.”

When Kei’s mother came back from the store, Yamaguchi was gone.

 

“I just  _ what _ , Tsukki?”

“ …Don’t call me that.”

“What?”

“Don’t call me ‘Tsukki.’”

“Oh. Sorry, Tsukishima, then.”

Kei looks away. 

“Don’t… don’t call me that either.” 

Kuroo sounds hesitant. “Wha—  Are you sure… Kei?”

Kei squeezes his eyes shut. And it feels like every moment of his existence has been leading up to this moment. “ _ Yes. _ ” 

Something flares in the gold of Kuroo’s eyes; Kei feels like he’s drowning in it, surrounded by a ring of fire with no escape. A part of him wants to succumb to the flames, wants to give himself up because he came too close to the heat—  and even if this whole night, this whole thing altogether is a disastrous explosion, it’s the last fucking night of the year. 

It’s the last fucking night of the year, Kei tells himself. And if he wants to go down in the gold of Kuroo’s eyes, then maybe he might just do that. 

“What are you playing at, Kei?” 

The words are sharp as ice, crackle like fire. 

“I don’t—  I don’t understand you. It’s been five fucking years and you just—  you just left. And there was no call and there was no excuse, God, couldn’t you at least have given me an excuse? Something? Anything but radio silence? Do you know how hard it was? I found my ways and everyone said you were okay, you were fine, and I had no idea what to do. Just tell me, Kei, if nothing else. Just tell me if there really was anything. We were both young and maybe this whole thing was stupid to you, but… but it wasn’t stupid to me. Just tell me if I ever really meant anything to you.”

Kei feels like he’s in a daze. Kuroo’s eyes shine under the streetlight, precious and rare against the black of the night. And that was how it was with them too, wasn’t it? Like fireworks. Like gold. Invaluable and inexpressible, so rare, the stakes so high that Kei just left. 

And in the end, it comes down to that: Kei just left. 

In that moment, it feels like the whole world holds its breath.

“Of course I loved you, Tetsurou.”

The dam breaks. 

“I just… I just…”

And the part Kei really regrets is how it all happened. 

Because Yamaguchi was right: one day he was there, and then—  gone. 

They’d exchanged numbers, sure. Promises to call, text, meet up. 

But it all felt too much. And the heady warmth of Kuroo’s hands on his hips had been replaced with cold doubt in his mind. Maybe… maybe it was all a fluke.

He was a first-year. Kuroo would go to college next year. They had nothing. It had never been anything. They would never have anything. They had cities between them too. It never could’ve been anything. 

Kuroo would forget about him soon enough. This way, Kei told himself, he’d never know how soon it happened. 

So… he let go. 

Calls went unanswered, texts unread. He pushed Kuroo to the farthest depths of his mind, threw himself into schoolwork, volleyball, even helped Yamaguchi at the Shimada Mart sometimes. Anything else. 

One day, Hinata asked, “Hey, did you get a new number?”

Kei felt his hackles raise. “Why do you ask?”

“Oh, well, Kenma was just texting me and told me to let you know that Kuroo wants to get in touch with you, but he can’t.”

“Oh,” he’d said quietly. 

(He should’ve reached out, he should’ve called, he should’ve mentioned it, he should’ve done something, something, anything, God, if he could do it all again— )

“Are you guys having more of those practice sessions like at training camp? That’s so not fair!”

“Yeah,” Kei responded. “Something like that. Tell Kenma that I’ll get in touch with Kuroo.”

(He never did.)

 

In all the movies Kei’s mother watches, short, round-faced girls clutch their chests and stand on their tiptoes and lean forward just so, and the magic begins. The roses, and the whirlwind romance, and the confessions, and the love letters, and all of it comes together to make his mother’s eyes tear up and her to turn to him and say, “Oh, Kei, isn’t that wonderful?”

The end of training camp, there, then—  

It was a different kind of magic. 

Kei didn’t stand on his tiptoes. He’s too tall for that. He didn’t clutch his chest; his heart beating overtime was a distant memory, something that seemed like it only existed far from this moment. There had been no roses, no love letters, no whirlwind romances to make his mother’s heart sigh, and yet the slot of their lips together was the most perfect thing Kei had ever known. 

Kuroo was surprised under his mouth, Kei felt it, but he stepped closer, closer, until Kei was traveling backward. His head bumped against the fence softly, but he barely heard the rustle of metal because Kuroo’s hands were in his hair and his teeth were grazing his lips and he was pretty sure this was the best first kiss anyone had ever had—  

Kuroo’s thumbs found his hips and Kei nearly died right then. 

They pulled away and he rested his head on Kuroo’s shoulders. His glasses were on the ground, having fallen out of his weak grip ages ago. Everything was just a little blurry, but Kei could still make out gold, gold irises against the tan of Kuroo’s skin.

Exhilaration rushed through him like the tides pulled by the moon. It was so much, too much. 

He couldn’t wait.

He couldn’t… He couldn’t—  

His hands on Kuroo’s warm skin, Kuroo’s lips on his throat, the scratch of his nails on Kuroo’s scalp, the gasps pulled from his throat—  they forgot about public decency, forgot the rest of the world even existed. It was just the two of them, and Kei felt like he might explode.

(“I didn’t know you liked boys.”

“I didn’t know you liked boys either.”

“I don’t know if I do. I just like you.”)

 

Cushioned by their bubble, the separation from everything that is and once was, Kei takes his chance.

“So… listen, I… There’ve just been these things that I wanted to say,” Kei starts, then stops. He doesn’t know where he’s going with this. 

Kuroo’s looking out toward the street, but at the pause, he glances towards Kei. 

“I… well…”

Kuroo suddenly cuts in, “You know, if this is too hard for you—”

“It’s not too hard for me,” Kei blurts out. “I… I just need a moment.”

Inwardly, Kei screams. What the hell is he doing? He can’t drive Kuroo away again. Yamaguchi was right. This is too important to make another mistake. 

Kei nearly smiles. So he’s not the best yet, but he’s come pretty damn far from 15-year-old Kei. 

Hopefully, Kuroo will know that. And if not, well, he tried. Somehow, the thought calms him. He takes a breath.

“I guess I never really got the chance to say I’m sorry,” he starts. “So, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left you back then. Especially not without any reason. I just… I don’t even know why I did that. It was stupid. But I guess I was just scared.”

“Scared that I liked you too much,” Kei admits, and just saying it out loud makes him huff out a laugh. “It was really stupid, I know. But I didn’t want you to leave, because that would hurt. A lot. So I just… stopped. And every day after that was harder and harder to explain and it looks like I only got to it five years later.”

“But it was a mistake,” Kei says suddenly. “A huge mistake. I just wanted to tell you that. And I realized that it was a mistake way too late. So… yeah,” he finishes lamely. “Just… wanted to say that. I’m trying to start again and all that. Yeah, anyway—”

Kuroo is expressionless. “Bold of you to be making all these big decisions in the last few minutes of the year, isn’t it?”

“Do you ever  _ shut up? _ ” Kei snaps. “I’m trying to tell you I love you.”

Kuroo bursts into raucous laughter, filling the quiet air, and Kei feels himself blush, of all things. God, maybe it is like he’s fifteen again. “You make things so hard,” he says.   
“No, you just make them too easy,” Kuroo replies with a grin.

Inside, the entire building is shouting so loud that it reverberates through the earth. Kei thinks he might be going crazy because he’s pretty sure he can specifically hear Hinata’s voice through all the noise. “TEN! NINE! EIGHT! SEVEN…” 

“Hey, by the way,” Kuroo says, “I can kiss you now, right? I mean, I’ve only waited five years.” 

Kei looks at him, golden eyes, golden heart, golden soul. And he starts to laugh. 

“ONE! HAPPY NEW YEAR!”

Kuroo pulls him in by the collar and they smile against each other’s lips. 

And somehow, the end feels like a beginning. 

**Author's Note:**

> wowie this fic was a rollercoaster to write! funny story: i started writing this with the party as daichi's birthday just for fun, only to casually wonder when it actually was and find out that it's today! december 31st! it must've been fate hahaha. 
> 
> 2018 was pretty wild for me... i'm a little sad to leave it behind but also excited to see what 2019 brings.   
> have a happy new year, everyone! i hope 2019 is your best year yet!


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